Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger Wednesday dismissed reports of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer as “just another story in the media’s neurotic, weekly tabloid obsession of Trump-Russian collusion.”

The North Carolina congressman’s statement came in response to an Observer request for comment on the stories that have headlined major news reports this week.

The New York Times first reported on the 2016 meeting among President Donald Trump’s eldest son, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.